Exchanging Letters
by Olive Drab
Summary: Writing home but with a difference. Chapter 3, the final one,is now up!
1. Chapter 1

**Exchange of Letters**

Hawkeye threw down his pen and paper in frustration.

"This is insane! I've been so bored for so long that for the first time ever, I can't think of anything to put in a letter to my Dad."

"Yep, it's just another typical day in an average hellhole," said BJ towelling his hair dry and looking for a clean shirt.

"What's everyone else doing? I need inspiration."

"The colonel's grooming Sophie, Father Mulcahy's writing Sunday's sermon, and Charles is in post-op checking on our only patient. The nurses have started a competition to find the fifty most novel uses for a bedpan, and some of the guys have started a rival competition to find the fifty most novel uses for a nurse." BJ grinned. "Nothing to write home about, as they say."

"Oh, very droll," said Hawkeye. "My hilarity runneth over."

"Well if you're struggling, how about dropping a line to the high-ups at the peace talks instead? Remind them that the pen is mightier than the mortar; that sort of thing."

"Yeah, well if that were true we'd be wiping inkstains off these kids instead of digging chunks of metal out of their vital organs." Hawkeye began to pace restlessly. "We've been hearing for weeks that the peace talks are coming to an end. If it's so damn easy to start a war, why does it take so long to end one? Why the hell is it taking so long to agree to stop killing each other?"

"The devil's in the detail, I guess. Which side gets to fire the last shot and so on." BJ gave up trying to locate a shirt and put on his bathrobe instead. "Maybe we could get a head start - just sneak off home and hope nobody notices before the ceasefire becomes official."

"Fat chance. You can bet the shooting will go on right up to the final whistle – they'll want to squeeze every last casualty out of the time allowed. This lull is just an oversight on somebody's part." Hawkeye slumped back down onto his cot, eyeing his freshly-washed bunkmate sourly. "Well what are _you_ going to do, now you're all clean and shiny?"

"I guess I'll write to Peg. Maybe my muse is more awake than yours."

Hawkeye's eyes suddenly lit up. "Hey, I know! Let's swap – I'll write to Peg and you can write to my Dad."

"What? Why?" BJ was taken completely by surprise as another of Hawkeye Pierce's Great Ideas appeared out of nowhere.

"Oh, come on, it's a great idea! You won't have to think of anything new to write - you can just re-use stuff you've already told Peg." Hawkeye was all childlike enthusiasm, his anger of a few moments before forgotten.

BJ was more cautious. "I doubt your Dad would appreciate some of the things I put in my letters to Peg," he said. "I'm also not sure it's a good idea to unleash you onto my poor unsuspecting wife, even in writing and from a distance of twelve thousand miles."

"I promise to behave," said Hawkeye, refusing to be insulted. "I shall be gallant and gracious - the epitome of etiquette."

BJ was almost convinced. "Okay then, but I have one condition."

"Name it."

"We write our own envelopes. I don't want Peg seeing handwriting she doesn't recognise and thinking something terrible happened to me."

"Sensible," conceded Hawkeye. "I have a condition too. Neither of us gets to read what the other has written."

There was a gleam in his friend's eye that made BJ wish he hadn't agreed to this. Still, it could be fun……

He gave in. "Okay, but just remember I can tell your Dad a few stories that'll make him choke on his breakfast."

BJ pulled his writing paper out of his footlocker and searched for a pen.

"Hey, what do I call your Dad?" he asked.

"Well, his name's Daniel, so I suggest you start with that. He's never met you Beej, but you can be sure he's heard all about you. In the same spirit, I am starting my letter "Dear voluptuous and soft-bodied Peg….." He ducked as a pillow flew in his direction. "Kidding!"

"I have a feeling I'm really gonna regret this," muttered BJ.

**A/N : To be continued – if anyone out there wants to know what's in the letters……**


	2. Chapter 2

**It seems that quite a few people want to know what Hawkeye would write to his best friend's wife (thanks to everyone who reviewed), so here it is.**

**Exchanging Letters - Dear Peg**

Dear Peg,

Before you wonder why you're getting a letter from a strange man in an envelope written by your husband, let me assure you that the US Mail is not to blame. The strange man in question is Benjamin Franklin Pierce - your husband may have mentioned me as Hawkeye, or possibly "the crazy guy I share a tent with". We were both writing home and coming up with the same old news you've probably heard a hundred times before, so we decided to swap families for the day. I guess that makes me a husband and a father, which is not what I thought would happen to me when I woke up this morning.

This was my idea, but I confess I'm a little nervous. When I was fifteen I wrote what I thought was a heartfelt yet witty and sophisticated love letter to Barbara Mayer, who sat next to me in Biology class. When her father threatened to come after me with a shotgun if I ever came within a mile of her again, I realised that it's all too easy to be misunderstood if you to try to be smart when writing to a lady you don't know very well. I don't want BJ pushing me in front of a passing tank or challenging me to a duel, so I apologise in advance for anything which may come across as either inappropriate flattery or pathetic adolescent humour (Papa Mayer's words).

Our little corner of Korea is mercifully quiet at the moment, but the irony is that when there are no wounded, there's not much to do here. The only patient is one of our own – the camp cook, who somehow got food poisoning from a cake his mother sent him. As we carried him over to post-op so we could keep an eye on him, BJ made a comment about just desserts and I nearly dropped the poor guy into the mud.

Did BJ always have that gift of timing? He will sit through a conversation, not saying very much at all, and then drop in a killer punchline out of the blue. It's so casually done that it takes a few seconds to sink in, and then we'll all be on the floor laughing. And yet at other times he's the practical joker from hell - last week he filled my pillow with creamed corn. I injected ink into his soap just before he took a shower the next morning and the results were spectacular, but now I'm living in a state of extreme fear, because BJ is the king when it comes to the perfectly planned practical joke. He has more patience than me, and he's biding his time, enjoying my growing paranoia, smiling innocently as I feverishly examine every item of clothing, every scrap of food, every room I enter. Eventually his revenge will come, and it will be both huge and brilliant. I may go and sleep in the minefield where I know it's safe.

When we get into the Operating Room it's different. We still toss wisecracks back and forth, but the enormity of what we are doing in there means that if we weren't joking we'd be either screaming or swearing. And we never, ever make light of what the wounded are going through. They are mostly scared kids who deserve nothing but our respect, our compassion and our very best efforts to make them whole again. Practical jokes are also out; at best it would be inappropriate and at worst downright dangerous. The one time I was stupid enough to play a practical joke in the OR I regretted it straight away – mainly because I nearly got lynched. It's a long story and in my defence I have to say that your husband was far from blameless in the whole sorry affair. You should ask him how that particular episode played out, preferably when you have guests round the dinner table one evening. At least I'll get the last laugh on that one.

I don't have to tell you that it's not all laughter and jokes over here. When your medical skill pulls someone back from the brink, you feel like a god – but when you lose someone, especially someone young, you think you'll never smile again. It's not uncommon for both these things to happen on the same shift, and that can be the hardest thing to handle. There have been days when I just wanted to be numb; not to think or feel anything, just for a little while. We've all had some of the best days and most of the worst days of our lives here.

And now it looks as if the fighting is finally coming to an end - I'm almost scared to say it in case Fate is listening and laughing. Everyone here is desperate to get home, but I can't help wondering what will happen when we all go our separate ways. This war has forced people who would never otherwise have met to live in each others' pockets, and to share experiences you couldn't normally conceive of in your worst nightmares. And yet something unexpected and incredible has happened here – friendships have developed which are stronger than any I've come across. When people ask me if I can see anything good coming out of all this, it's the friendships that I think of, and especially the friendship I share with BJ. He has been there for me at the time in my life when I most needed brotherly advice or brotherly support, or (more than once) a brotherly kick in the rear. And on the strength of that relationship, I hope you will forgive me if I finish my letter to the woman he loves with a few words of advice.

We are all about to be yanked away from here and reinserted into the real world, away from the support of the people who have been through this insanity with us. For some people that's going to be tougher than they realize. You have been BJ's lifeline while he's been here, Peg. The few times I've seen him go off the rails it's been because something has reminded him of you and Erin and how far away you are. He lives for the moment when he sees you again, when he can pick up his life and carry on, but I don't think any of us will escape from this place undamaged. He's going to need your patience and your understanding, until the ghosts which follow him home begin to fade. Most of all he's going to need your love.

And that's why I think he will be okay. No inappropriate flattery or pathetic adolescent humour intended.

I wish the three of you all the happiness in the world.

Affectionately

Hawkeye Pierce

**A/N: Well, that was weird – it didn't go quite the way I'd planned. Anyway, I hope you like it. BJ's letter to Daniel will follow in the not too distant future. By the way, the sentence where Hawkeye says he wants to be numb is more or less lifted from a fabulous song called Numb by The Pet Shop Boys. Don't listen to it if you are depressed.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed Chapters 1 and 2. Here's the final instalment!**

**Exchanging Letters – Dear Daniel**

Dear Daniel

This won't be the letter you expected to find in an envelope from Korea, so let me set your mind at rest before you start to imagine the worst. Hawkeye is fine. This is BJ Hunnicutt, and I'm writing to you because your son came up with a novel way to deal with a lull in activity here; namely that he would write to my wife while I wrote to you. He's sitting on his cot scratching away and smiling to himself, and I'm left wondering if my wife will ever speak to me again.

That's typical Hawkeye, although you don't need me to tell you that. When he gets some crazy scheme into his head, everyone else just gets swept along for the ride. Without even trying, he's become a kind of morale officer here, but when people expect you to be the life and soul every day it can be tough sometimes. Last week ago, after a nightmare session in OR, Father Mulcahy suggested a fancy dress party where everyone had to come as someone or something from the 4077th. It was just what we all needed, and soon we were all having fun with it, coming up with ideas and making costumes, but Hawkeye had lost a couple of patients and was in a pretty black mood. When I found him in the officers' club, he told me that he was going to go as the Grim Reaper "because death crawls all over this place". I eventually managed to talk him out of it with the help of a few more drinks, and the two of us went as Sophie, the colonel's horse. Our costume had to be seen to be believed – and boy, did I get the wrong end of that deal! The whole evening was great, a great chance to blow off some steam, and ended with a conga that should go down as the wildest ever. Of course the next day Hawkeye was his normal hyperactive self, once the hangover had worn off, but that's just the nature of the guy. He has higher highs and lower lows than anyone else I know, and when something gets to him, he has a tendency to retreat to a place where it can be difficult to reach him. He must have been a joy to know as a teenager.

But things can get to us all sometimes, and Father Mulcahy's party is a good example of how we cope with things here. We have movie nights and talentless shows, and two of the entries in our latest modelmaking competition were eliminated on the grounds of decency. We ran a whole season of cockroach races and adopted the champion as our company mascot. He was named Eric and he came along to every parade and meeting until we found him one night at the bottom of a glass of cognac belonging to our tentmate. There can be few better ways to go, we decided – although Charles wasn't too happy. He is now preserved in alcohol on a shelf in the officers' club and we drink a toast to him every evening. That's Eric, not Charles.

This may sound like schoolboy stuff, Daniel, but sometimes insanity is the only thing keeping us sane. It can be a real struggle to survive here – and I'm not talking about the wounded. Often it's either laugh or cry, and we do both, believe me. I always thought a husband and wife should share everything, but I will never be able to talk to Peg about some of the things I've seen and done here. How can I tell her that I held a seventeen year old boy in my arms in the mud, calling for his mother as Hawkeye tried and failed to stop him bleeding to death in front of us? Or about the heartbreaking choices we have to make on a daily basis, because we just can't afford to spend a long time on one patient when there are a dozen more waiting? She doesn't ever need to know about that stuff, or the rest.

I don't know if you are getting news any different to what we hear, but it seems that we could be packing up and leaving for home before too long. I can hardly believe that soon I'll be back in San Francisco with my family. I miss them so much that for a while I tried not to think about them too often, but now I suppose I'm used to the constant sense of something missing that should be there. My daughter Erin is almost two, and I've never heard her talk or seen her walk. I can't wait to get to know the person she's becoming. Everyone here is excited about going home. There's a real buzz around the place, but there's a kind of sadness too. Do you remember when you left school and promised faithfully to keep in touch with everyone? And then one day a few years down the line you suddenly wonder what became of friends who used to be the most important people in your life and whose names you can hardly remember now. I hope we don't all drift apart like that, and I have a feeling it won't happen – the things we've shared here have created an incredibly strong bond between us all. I remember Hawkeye telling me on my first day in Korea that he's closer to the people here than he's ever been to anyone except family. Now I know what he meant, and it will be tough to say goodbye.

I'm not even sure I'll be able to bring myself to say goodbye to Hawkeye. I've never met anyone like him, Daniel; I'm constantly amazed by the way he attacks life, head-on and at full speed. In the operating theatre he challenges death in the same way, daring it to defeat him. It rarely does, but every loss is a personal failure to him. If it's possible to care too much, then Hawkeye does. He lives closer to the edge than anyone here, and I think the day he goes home won't be a day too soon.

But we're in for a little R and R first. If we don't get a sudden rush of wounded, the colonel has given the okay for a bunch of us to go to the beach tomorrow. With peace finally in sight, I think we're in for a party to remember.

I hope we meet someday, Daniel. I want to see for myself whether Crabapple Cove really is the closest thing to heaven on earth as Hawkeye claims, and I can't wait to taste the famous Maine lobster I've heard so much about. I'd also like to know how much of you there is in Hawkeye. Did you know he once described you as the greatest man he's ever known? I guess that's not the sort of thing a son often tells his father, but it's the sort of thing a father should know.

With best wishes for a peaceful future

BJ Hunnicutt

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"Are you done?" asked Hawkeye, standing up and stretching.

"Yeah, just about." BJ folded his letter and sealed it into the envelope. "Let's take these across to Klinger for mailing and then get some lunch."

"You know you're in trouble when lunch is the highlight of the day," said Hawkeye as they left the Swamp. "So what did you write?"

"Nothing really. Y'know, just….stuff. You?"

"Yeah, just stuff."

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**A/N: Neither of those letters turned quite the way I'd anticipated when I started, but I hope you liked them anyway!**


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